[Footnote 6:  The Tale of a Tub.]

[Footnote 7:  He sent a message to the author to desire his pardon, and that he was very sorry for what he had said and done.]

[Footnote 8:  Insert murder’d.  The duchess’s first husband, Thomas Thynne, Esq., was assassinated in Pall Mall by banditti, the emissaries of Count Koenigsmark.  As the motive of this crime was the count’s love to the lady, with whom Thynne had never cohabited, Swift seems to throw upon her the imputation of being privy to the crime.  See the “Windsor Prophecy,” ante, p. 150.—­W.  E. B.]

[Footnote 9:  The Duke of Argyle.]

[Footnote 10:  For writing “The Public Spirit of the Whigs.”]

[Footnote 11:  Then lord-treasurer of the household, who cautiously avoided Swift while the proclamation was impending.]

[Footnote 12:  He was visited by the Scots lords more than ever.]

THE FAGOT[1]

Written in the year 1713, when the Queen’s ministers were quarrelling among themselves.

Observe the dying father speak: 
Try, lads, can you this bundle break? 
Then bids the youngest of the six
Take up a well-bound heap of sticks. 
They thought it was an old man’s maggot;
And strove, by turns, to break the fagot: 
In vain:  the complicated wands
Were much too strong for all their hands. 
See, said the sire, how soon ’tis done: 
Then took and broke them one by one. 
So strong you’ll be, in friendship ty’d;
So quickly broke, if you divide. 
Keep close then, boys, and never quarrel: 
Here ends the fable, and the moral. 
  This tale may be applied in few words,
To treasurers, comptrollers, stewards;
And others, who, in solemn sort,
Appear with slender wands at court;
Not firmly join’d to keep their ground,
But lashing one another round: 
While wise men think they ought to fight
With quarterstaffs instead of white;
Or constable, with staff of peace,
Should come and make the clatt’ring cease;
Which now disturbs the queen and court,
And gives the Whigs and rabble sport. 
  In history we never found
The consul’s fasces[2] were unbound: 
Those Romans were too wise to think on’t,
Except to lash some grand delinquent,
How would they blush to hear it said,
The praetor broke the consul’s head! 
Or consul in his purple gown,
Came up and knock’d the praetor down! 
  Come, courtiers:  every man his stick! 
Lord treasurer,[3] for once be quick: 
And that they may the closer cling,
Take your blue ribbon for a string. 
Come, trimming Harcourt,[4] bring your mace;
And squeeze it in, or quit your place: 
Dispatch, or else that rascal Northey[5]
Will undertake to do it for thee: 
And be assured, the court will find him
Prepared to leap o’er sticks, or bind them. 
  To make the bundle strong and safe,
Great Ormond, lend thy general’s staff: 
And, if the crosier could be cramm’d in
A fig for Lechmere, King, and Hambden! 
You’ll then defy the strongest Whig
With both his hands to bend a twig;
Though with united strength they all pull,
From Somers,[6] down to Craggs[7] and Walpole.